In Elysium

I had my existence. I was there.
Me in place and the place in me.
-Seamus Heaney, A Herbal.

1.

Night speeds by, and we, Seamus,
Lose it in lamenting.
So when you take your place by Oceanus,

Do not look back. Go with garland
Of flower and wreath entwining
Your hand. Throw over Elysian field

That gaze of all-forwarding you combined
For us when you came at last with Latin-
Out of Noli, to not yield

And timere, to fear.

2.

Elysium? Why not Magherafelt
In late September.
A light rain composing the lough
It falls to. And you there, still,
In briar and moss, in sphagnum
And downpour, in mother and child,
In lake water and rainfall-
In each small way life reminds us
Of life happening, all at once.

3.

Or Bellaghy, where just now
A knell as tainted in the rising

As in the falling
Whirred up so furiously

That nothing could resettle right.
Songbird joined blackbird,

Sky stilled against wind,
Light became a conclave of darkness

So that when we looked up,
Each of us wore the shadow lines

Of another world's reflection.